Panorama Photo: Cape Alava, Washington

Located in Olympic National Park in the state of Washington, Cape Alava is the westernmost point of the Lower 48 states. It's hard to get here and for that reason not many people visit it. To reach Cape Alava, you drive to the end of the 21-mile Hoko-Ozette Road, then hike for three miles through the rainforest until you reach the coast. From there, you hike about a mile north on the rocky beach. The westernmost point isn't marked, so I had to use my GPS and compass to locate it.

I'd visited Cape Alava once before, in 1993, and took a picture of myself there (the term "selfie" hadn't been invented yet) and put the photo on my Christmas Card for that year. "Merry Christmas from the Westernmost Point of the U.S." Except I was standing on the wrong point! The point shown in this panorama is actually the westernmost point of the contiguous United States.